


Down To The River

by evil_whimsey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dark, Gen, pre-canon Trainee Auror Moody, whimsey's headcanon moody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:31:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_whimsey/pseuds/evil_whimsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alastor wouldn't shirk his last duty to Captain Sanger.  Not ever.</i>
</p>
<p>Warning for mild gore and near-death experience.<br/>(Written in 2007 for a music-prompt challenge.  Inspired by Alison Krauss, "Down to the River to Pray")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"Oh brothers, let's go down,  
Down to the river to pray."_

 

 

Captain Sanger wailed like a fire siren toward the end, full-breath screams that went on and on, tearing at the ears and the nerves and the heart until his voice went raw, and then hoarse, and then mortally silent. 

When the screaming ceased, Alastor caught a new sound, previously drowned out. It was here and there, maddeningly arrythmic, a rasp topped out with a whistle, and when he realized the sound was him, coming out of his own chest, it halted. Hitched once or twice, and came back at a quicker tempo, still irregular, like a three-legged dog pursued by something hungry.

He'd come to on the ground, aching violently all over, hands cold and his Captain's screams filling the world. The smell of scorched flesh--most of it his, from the feel of it--was sharp and sickening at first, but it was soon pushed to the background by the sweetish tang of Sanger's blood which was....

_Oh God it was everywhere_. Thick on the cobblestones, spattered for thirty feet down the alley wall, and drying stiff into the knees and elbows of Alastor's own clothes. All that blood and the continued silence from down the alley could mean only one thing, that his Captain was no longer in this world, and sudden instinct warned young Auror Moody that if he dwelt for much longer on the ghastly evidence, his reason would be forever lost too.

He squinched his eyes shut, and turned to personal inventory for a distraction. Left leg broken, collarbone and some ribs. Deep burns down his back from shoulder to waist; the last of those particular hexes had been what knocked him out. _Punctured lung?_ he wondered, feeling that wet teakettle wheeze with every breath. 

Yet for all that damage, the overall hurt was diminshing already; trailing off as heavy coldness seeped into his limbs. He understood what that meant, that his time was growing short too. 

The understanding was a bit muffled though, a bit distant. He opened one eye to check, and yes, things were going dim. A deep winter darkness was closing in now, and the stones pressed to his cheek were shadowed, the wall with the blood already lost to sight.

Breathing was a chore. He had to remember to do it, but remembering was tiring him out. It was coming on night, and he wanted nothing so much as a long, long rest.

_Now I lay me down to sleep_. That old lullaby from childhood, Mother at his bedside helping him recite.

_I pray the Lord my soul to keep._ He wondered if the Captain ever knew that rhyme. If maybe somewhere in all that screaming it had come back to him, before death finally took mercy on him. Alastor was never much for praying, and even in this extremity he didn't feel much of an urge to it. But he did _hope_ fervently, that wherever Captain Sanger was, it was somewhere peaceful.

As for himself, well it was peaceful enough now. He was drifting on an iceberg down a long black current of night. Nothing hurt, though somewhere, beneath the thick ice layer, he felt a stir of uneasiness at that. 

There was something off-kilter here. Something he was forgetting. Was it the teakettle? He could still hear it. 

Someone should turn the bloody thing off, really.

Let a bloke get some rest.

_If I should die before I wake...._

He'd always felt a chill when they'd gotten to that part, he and Mother, and now it jolted him with dread, back to awakeness with his lungs on fire, sucking in air, white-hot knives thrusting hilt-deep into his ribs with every breath. 

Alastor's first thought was that he didn't dare sleep on duty; it was treason for an Auror, something they all but beat into you with the training. Then as renewed pain cleared some of the darkness from his head, he recalled Sanger, that the man who'd taught him and led him and occasionally knocked him to the ground for his cheek, had _died screaming_ and for Alastor to go quietly in sleep after him would be much worse than treason, and infinitely worse than unforgiveable.

And that was all it took to wake him up.

It was said around the department that Alastor Moody was too hot-headed to make a good Auror. That for all his raw talent and ironclad ethics, the lad was too quick to take offense to things and altogether too demonstrative about his objections. It was why they'd partnered him with Sanger in the first place, for the Captain was the only man in the department willing to keep a leash on Alastor, find a focus for all his intensity and energy, and take him down when he needed taking down. 

The rest of his superiors pronounced him short-fused, too obdurate for one so young. His reputation (along with a tendency to back up his convictions with wand or fists) had barred him from finishing first in his class at the Academy. He'd come in a grim-faced second instead, with a perfect score on the written exam and a Special Commendation in the deductive assessments. 

Yet ironically, it was his notorious temper more than all that training which saved his life.

At first it was full bodied heat and fury, and that red haze he always saw right before his opponents went through walls and windows and down flights of stairs. And then he thrashed over onto his side, rousing the shrieking pain in his clavicle and leg and everywhere, while the entire universe ground to a standstill.

He counted to ten, and ten again. Made himself breathe in and out as best he could, watched the red haze break up in tatters and dissolve. 

And then, for a few crucial moments, Alastor teetered. On a strange breathless fulcrum between blind rage and physiological shock; his wrath gone head-to-head against his injuries, and in between a neutral zone where his mind and senses gleamed razor-sharp.

He didn't waste time wondering if it would last long enough; he was too busy marshalling all his energy into raising up, getting himself over to the gutter where his wand had rolled when that last curse had taken him down. He dragged himself across the alley by excruciating increments, fingernails scraping into the cobblestones, the teakettle whistle in his lungs gone to a full boil.

That tiresome persistant darkness was slowly encroaching on his vision, but he kept his wand right in the centre of his sight, refusing to look anywhere else. Not at Sanger's blood as he crawled through it, and not at Sanger's body down the kerb. Neither did he look down at his own hands, though they were numb and clumsy, and everytime he reached for a fingerhold in the cobblestones, it seemed to take longer.

Not two feet from the gutter, a coughing fit struck, all brambles and barbed wire from diaphragm to larynx. He slumped over, coughing wet onto the backs of his hands, but he didn't look down. He could taste the blood in his mouth, but he didn't think about what it meant. All that mattered was that he could _almost_ reach for his wand, only a few inches further. He would not be going gentle into that icy night. He refused to die before he woke. At least not without his goddamned _wand_.

He'd only meant to clear his throat a little, but the brambles and barbed wire choked him, and his body seized up in the cough, and then it was black.

And not cold at all.

Captain Sanger stood over him, looking down. "Doing a bit of woolgathering, are we?"  
Alastor blinked. "No sir, I'm just....." He glanced around. What _was_ he doing?

They were back on the iceberg, flat and slick but not cold. Drifting along in the current with dark all around, going from nothing to nowhere. Alastor could see the shine on the Captain's boots, and the hem of his cloak gently stirred by a breeze he couldn't feel. He tried to look closer, tried to figure it out, but then the Captain was bending down to look him in the eye.

"You know I can't bear a shirker, Moody," he grumbled, just as if they were back in barracks and the Grounds Cleaning Detail had come up one member short. "Isn't there somewhere you ought to be about now?"  
Alastor scowled, hating to be chastised, even in uncommon circumstances like these.

"My wand," he suddenly recalled, not quite sure why he wanted it, only that the search had vexed him greatly. "I was looking for my sodding wand." Adding after a second thought, "Er, Captain, sir."

The Captain looked briefly thoughtful, then reached inside his uniform cloak. "This what you were looking for, then?" Handing over Alastor's wand, easy as anything.

"What? How in the nine hells did it end up--". The Captain cut off his exclamation halfway through with a look, and Alastor finished with, "Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome," said Sanger. "Now get your arse back to work."

It was still dark, but he was face down on the cobblestones again, gasping like a trout on a riverbank, and the pain was so huge he felt his stomach turning over, and he gritted his teeth hard against it, knowing if he vomited it would kill him for certain. He clenched his fists against the urge too, not even registering the rough solidity of his wand in his right palm at first.....

And then he did, and a snarl of triumph forced its way out through the choking, and he remembered what the Captain had told him. He raised up on his side one last time, sent the red sparks showering up and out, a glimmering signal over the rooftops, bathing the alley in stars that blurred together through his hot, fierce tears.

He sent the signal up once more for good measure, and then collapsed back, hanging on to consciousness with his nails digging into his palms until he heard the voices of the backup unit--Shanks and Forrester and Sergeant Hammet--shouting down the alley. There was all sorts of noise after that, but all Alastor could think of was his Captain, heading down that river of utter darkness, uniform smart and straight, sailing on to whatever came next.

_I pray the Lord his soul to keep_ , Alastor thought, like a good-luck gesture to the man. He'd make sure they gave him a proper sendoff back at MLE. Make sure he wasn't forgotten. 

Alastor wouldn't shirk his last duty to Captain Sanger. Not ever.

 

_I pray the Lord his soul to keep._


	2. Related sketch:  Spectres and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An outtake from god only knows what unfinished ancient Moody fic, because PandoraCulpa mentioned she liked Sanger. Even though I'm pretty sure I mostly wrote him horribly dead. Erm. Sorry.

"Alastor, I am in need of some advice," Dumbledore had said casually, inspecting the teapot on Moody's kitchen table.

"About what?" Assuming it was about a choice between jasmine tea or Darjeeling to go with the curry, which was filling the kitchen with a tantalizing odor. He was at the sink rinsing out two clean cups, thinking that jasmine did not go well with his whisky, so he'd have to vote for the Dar--

"The Order of The Phoenix gains twelve new members day after tomorrow. I'm trying to decide whether to hold a formal induction ceremony, or simply meet over tea as we used to."

Moody's insides went cold, and he carefully set the teacup he was rinsing down on the drainboard, before his hands started shaking. Outside his kitchen window, he could see his old Auror Chief, Sanger, doing a smart parade march among the dandelions in the backyard, hauling his intestines under his elbow.

"I'm sure I couldn't say," he said, relieved his voice didn't crack. Sanger died of the Entrail-Expelling curse, cast by a Death Eater, he recalled. He'd seen it happen, though it was more a fact than a specific memory now.

"It occurred to me," Dumbledore went on, "that a ceremony might be nice. Some formal recognition of the veterans, give a bit of encouragement to the newcomers."

Dead Chief Sanger performed an about-face in the sunshine, and began walking toward the kitchen window. Moody took a half-step back and rubbed his hands together. They felt uncomfortably grimy. He'd have to give them a good scrubbing before picking up that teacup again. Dumbledore was still chattering inanely behind him.

"...something cozy about the informal meetings. Felt more like family, you know. And we have some splendid new talent joining us..."  
Sanger reached the kitchen window, dead eyes boring into Moody, his mouth splitting open in a wide bloody grin. _What sharp red teeth_ , Moody thought, and something in him dropped and shattered, like a teapot falling on pavement.

"Bugger off. I saw you die," he whispered to Sanger, and turned away toward Dumbledore, who immediately went quiet and watchful.  
"Alastor?"

"T'isn't dirt," he said, looking down at his red, chapped hands. "Never was. It's blood. I can't see it, but I feel it. All the time. Wet. Dry. Up under my nails. Can't even see it with this eye," pointing to the one that saw everything. "But I know it's there."

Dumbledore said nothing, only watched him over the tops of his spectacles.

"That's why they come to me. They want back the blood that's on my hands. Their blood." He hadn't thought this part through, but knew instinctively it was the truth. And although what he heard coming from his mouth sounded like pure raving lunacy, the knowledge was so huge in him that he felt he'd drown or burst if it went unconfessed. "I saw all of them die. Now they haunt me."  
"One of our new members is an Auror." Dumbledore spoke in a quiet tone, his eyes downcast. "A Metamorphmagus, as well."

Moody slammed a hand on the counter, and took a step toward the table, suddenly furious. "I don't care if he's a bleeding diamond-plated centaur, Albus! I watched most your _cozy family_ murdered years ago. I see them in my shower in the morning, beneath my bed at night. In my pantry, for Merlin's sweet sake. Talk to me not of your Order, or your meetings. I am done collecting spectres and nightmares!"


End file.
